Turkey police round up dozens over alleged PKK links

Supporters of Turkey’s main pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) gather for a protest after Turkish police detained 90 people over suspected links to outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) rebels in Diyarbakir, Turkey October 9, 2018. REUTERS/Sertac Kayar

Turkish police detained dozens of people over alleged links to Kurdish militants in an operation carried out in nine cities including Kurdish-majority Diyarbakir, the local prosecutor’s office said Tuesday.

The police detained 90 out of 151 suspects they were seeking during the raids carried out at 183 addresses, and seized organisational documents and digital materials, the chief prosecutor’s office in Diyarbakir said in a statement.

The suspects were accused of links to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), designated as a terror group by Turkey and its Western allies.

The PKK is regularly targeted in security forces raids.

Clashes between Turkish security forces and the PKK resumed after a fragile two-year ceasefire collapsed in 2015.

The PKK’s armed struggle with the Turkish government has killed more than 40,000 people since 1984.

Last week, eight Turkish soldiers were killed by an improvised explosive device in southeastern Turkey in an attack which the government blamed on the PKK.